Report Showcases N.B. Culture Sector That Contributes $550-Million To GDP
SAINT JOHN — New Brunswick’s arts and culture sector contributes $550-million to the province’s GDP, more than agriculture, pulp and paper, manufacturing, IT, seafood manufacturing or mining, according to a new report commissioned by Artslink NB.
The report, titled Cultivating Our Cultural Workers: Realities of New Brunswick’s arts and culture workforce, was released this week. For the report, Artslink NB hired economist David Campbell to do a survey of working artists in New Brunswick. The report combines information from the survey with Statistics Canada and other data into a comprehensive profile of the artist workforce in New Brunswick.
“If you think about the subsidies or the attention put into all the other sectors, manufacturing, fisheries, things like that. If you compare the amount of investment in those versus the amount of investment in art and culture, there’s a huge disparity between the two,” says Artslink NB executive director Julie Whitenect.
“What we see is that arts and culture are not really invested in by the government, but still the output is quite strong even without their help…if they did invest in it, how much stronger it could be.”
Another major finding of the report is that New Brunswick has a cultural trade deficit. The province imported $808-million worth of cultural products and services in 2015 and exported only $233-million for a deficit of $575-million.
Only Ontario has a cultural trade surplus among the 10 provinces. New Brunswick ranks 7th among the 10 provinces for its relative trade deficit, exporting only 29 cents for every dollar of cultural imports.
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Whitenect says policies like ensuring New Brunswick educational institutions are buying New Brunswick-made books can help reduce the deficit.
“What happens right now in the education system is we’re purchasing all our books outside the province,” she says. “Which doesn’t make any sense because we have books here and that would generate income for New Brunswick artists, New Brunswick publishing and it would also offset some of that deficit.”
The report also gives seven recommendations for the government, the arts and culture sector, and stakeholders to help better support workers and help the industry grow. These include creating new workspaces for artists, better promoting New Brunswick artists both within the province and beyond, and more focused funding and income measures for the sector.
Another recommendation is addressing the aging workforce, a reality for all industries in the province.
“We need to be thinking about not only the youth out-migration of younger artists leaving and not coming here … but also the fact that our artists are older,” says Whitenect. “They’re retiring or they maybe would like to retire and what social protections they may not have access to and what that’s going to look like for them. As an artist, you don’t necessarily have a pension or a plan, or the same resources that someone else would.”
The report also gives a by-the-numbers look at things like income sources; the variety of industries that employ arts and cultural workers; language; and many others.
Whitenect says the report, which is freely available on the Artslink NB website, may be useful to artists and organizations in the province when they apply for things like grants and funding.
“If you do not inherently appreciate the importance of the arts, these numbers can help reflect the economic impact, which is quite a strong argument,” she says. “Our report is out there so everyone can use it to strengthen their own arguments when applying for funding, when seeking support, when developing new programs.”
The report also lays out the case to the government about the economic impact the arts and culture industry has in New Brunswick.
“That’s our hope, so the entire community can use this to advocate for themselves,” says Whitenect. “But also our representatives can be informed about what the sector is providing.”